Saint Joseph Catholic Church

Pope Leo XIV reflected on Christ’s healing of the man blind from birth (John 9:1-41) as he addressed pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for today’s midday Angelus address (video).

At the conclusion of his midday Angelus today, Pope Leo XIV call for a ceasefire in the Iran war and in the war in Lebanon.

The Focolare Movement‘s general assembly reelected Margaret Karram, its leader since 2021, to a second five-year term as president.

Bishop Antoni Dziemianko of Pinsk described the “forced departure” of Fathers Paweł Kruczek and Adam Straczyński as “very painful.”

Belarus, an Eastern European nation of 9.5 million (map), is 82% Christian (63% Orthodox, 17% Catholic). An autocratic president, Alexander Lukashenko, has led the nation since 1994.

“There is also concern about Holy Week,” Bishop Aldo Berardi, O.SS.T., the vicar apostolic of Northern Arabia, told Agenzia Fides, the news agency of the Pontifical Mission Societies. “We have not yet received any instructions [from civil authorities] as to whether celebrations can be held or whether access will have to be restricted.”

“His Holiness encourages the participants to consider how mathematicians can be hopeful signs to the wider world,” Cardinal Parolin wrote in his March 13 message. “In this regard, an especially fruitful area of research is the use of algorithms, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence.”

“Such a task requires not just intellectual effort and ingenuity but an integral growth of the whole person, in order to encompass the moral dimension of these emerging technologies,” Cardinal Parolin added, as he recalled the Pontiff’s “own time as a teacher of mathematics and physics.”